Parson backs higher education funding needs in MU visit

Rudi Keller @CDTCivilWar

Wednesday

Jun 13, 2018 at 6:55 PMJun 13, 2018 at 6:55 PM

University of Missouri leaders got what they wanted Wednesday from a visit by Gov. Mike Parson — a clear signal that they shouldn’t be worried he will impose large budget cuts when he acts on appropriation bills.

Parson, too, got what he wanted — a chance to make another contrast with his predecessor, spending 90 minutes on campus talking to administrators and academics and showing his support for higher education as a path to prosperity.

Former Gov. Eric Greitens began the year by proposing a 10 percent cut in funding to state colleges and universities. Lawmakers rejected those cuts in the budget for the year beginning July 1 and Parson praised them for doing so.

“I think we reinstated cuts to the universities and we are well aware of what we are going to have to do for the future,” Parson said. “One thing is for sure, you can’t go out there and say we are going to cut the education arena and all of a sudden say we want skilled workers out there.”

Those words are reassuring, UM System President Mun Choi said.

“Stable support for higher education is critical for us and I have been saying that for the past 16 months,” Choi said. “We will work with the governor’s office to work on demonstrating the value that we provide to the state of Missouri. With further withholds, what that would do is take away from activities such as this, activities that lead to advanced research.”

The Board of Curators will meet next week to finalize a system budget for the coming year. It will be the third year of belt-tightening on the Columbia campus, with $45.4 million in cuts and the elimination of 185 jobs, including 30 layoffs. Campus officials have said that if Greitens’ proposal had been adopted, the cuts would have approached $70 million.

But annual funding wasn’t the only or even the top item on the agenda Wednesday. Parson came to Columbia on the second day of a nine-stop listening tour. He heard about the Translational Precision Medicine Complex — a $200 million research facility in the planning stages — and put on virtual reality and enhanced reality headsets in the Immersive Visualization Lab.

Parson manipulated molecules in cyberspace and saw how he was represented in enhanced reality. He said it reminded him of a tour of facilities on the East Coast soon after becoming a state representative in 2005.

“I went to all these companies and businesses and universities and I am thinking, we need to have that all right here,” he said. “There is no reason Missouri can’t lead in that and I think you guys are proving that you can.”

Parson’s venture into the world of virtual reality was impressive, Choi said.

“You also saw up there that he was genuinely interested in his ability to become a genomic scientist,” he said.

Every day in office, Parson is trying to create a contrast with Greitens. His predecessor rarely took questions from reporters, never visited with top university officials on campus and used university appropriations to balance the state budget.

“You can see a difference in the governor’s office in the enthusiasm about this institution and all four campuses,” Curator Maurice Graham said.

Much of the meeting was spent on the university’s economic impact on the state — which consulting firm Tripp Umbach pegged at $5.4 billion annually in a report issued in April — and how Choi plans to build that up through research. The Translational Precision Medicine Complex is the key facility in that plan.

“We have a critical obligation to the state of Missouri to take research and economic innovations that are produced in our universities and take them out to the state,” McIntosh said. “That is why the Translational Precision Medicine Complex is one of the most important investments we can make.”

The complex will be built with university funds, money invested by private companies that want to participate in research, and, if possible, state funds. But the availability of state money won’t change the university’s plan. Higher education budgets are always subject to cuts because other major areas of state expense aren’t flexible, Choi said.

“We have to prepare for a future with less state support,” he said.

Overall, Choi said the visit left an impression that Parson wants to help the university.

“The fact that the governor, within his first week in office, came to the University of Missouri and spent an hour and a half talking about the value of workforce development, the value of research and the role that we can play in economic development, I think it sends a really strong message."

rkeller@columbiatribune.com

573-815-1709

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